How Forest Grove is changing, and handling that change, is one of the reasons I chose this city as my home last year.

By Jayne Cravens

You've heard that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. But there's one more thing that should be added to that saying: change.

Change is certain. It's inevitable. Sometimes it's revolutionary, sometimes evolutionary. Sometimes change comes quickly, others it comes over a long period of time. But it always happens. And how Forest Grove is changing, and handling that change, is one of the reasons I chose this city as my home last year.

I moved back to the United States from Germany in 2009. I'm originally from Kentucky, and I have lived all over the U.S., including Connecticut, Massachusetts, California and Texas. For many reasons after my eight-year European adventure, I decided to look for a permanent home in the Portland metro area. After three years of exploring various cities, my husband and I chose Forest Grove, buying our first home ever here.

We chose Forest Grove for many reasons: the historic neighborhoods, the look and feel of the downtown, the robust weekly farmers market and that there is a university here.

We are trying to be a one-car family, so TriMet bus line 57 was another draw for us. Forest Grove Fire & Rescue gave my husband, a 15-years-plus volunteer firefighting veteran in Germany, a hearty welcome to apply to be a volunteer firefighter here.

I immediately became interested in Adelante Mujeres, an organization doing work very similar to the work of non-governmental organizations I work with in Afghanistan, Egypt and various countries in Africa as a consultant.

Another reason we chose Forest Grove is its growing diversity. Unlike the small Oregon town we lived in before moving here, we have frequently met people in Forest Grove from other states, even other countries.

I have loved the food and culture that people from Mexico and various Asian countries have added to my home state of Kentucky, and the unique Latino cultures I experienced when I lived in San Jose, Calif., and Austin, Texas, and have been happy to find at least a bit of that here.

View full sizeBillie Xiong, displaying flowers at her GX Family Garden booth, is one of the many faces of diversity at the Forest Grove Farmers Market.Benjamin Brink/Forest Grove Leader

Forest Grove is changing, and I am part of that change. But then, it's always been changing.

The first people of European descent to move here represented a massive change for the local indigenous population. Every house now cherished here as historic was, at the time of its building, new, and perhaps, not all were welcomed. The first manufacturing businesses here were probably not wanted by everyone, yet, when they closed, I'm sure most people were sad to see them, and their jobs, go.

I know that Forest Grove and surrounding cities now embrace the money that tourism can bring, but I also know that many Oregon cities did not originally want tourists (and have heard some people in other cities say they still don't). I have wondered at the reaction to when the first railways started serving Forest Grove 100 years ago, and the reaction when they stopped. I wonder the same regarding the streetcar service that ran here as well.

I've read about the backlash against Irish immigrants in the 1800s, where they were called filthy, reckless, and too different in terms of family values and religion to fit in the United States. I was stunned at the scene in "Mystic Pizza" when one of the characters encountered prejudice against her Portuguese ethnicity, a prejudice I had no idea existed. Some of the negative comments I hear now in Forest Grove by a few people about Latino immigrants sound so similar. Will people read these comments 100 years from now and be as confused by them as I was at that scene in "Mystic Pizza"?

I read comments on Facebook lamenting that a long-term goal of the Forest Grove Planning Commission is that TriMet will extend light rail line here someday. Several people said rail access would ruin the small-town feel here, bring in more crime, and bring in people that locals don't want here. I went online and searched terms like "does mass transit increase crime" and "does light rail increase crime" and could not find any studies that said light rail anywhere in the U.S. leads to more crime in the surrounding areas. Perhaps, instead, easier mass transit could bring more customers here for the many small businesses here that need them – customers who would spend their money and then go home elsewhere.

In our capitalistic society, economic prosperity is possible only with population growth. And that means change. In my experience, communities that thrive are those that preserve what's best about themselves while leveraging what's new. Forest Grove has struck me as a place that is in a great position to embrace and guide the changes that will, that must come. I'm happy to be a part of that.

Jayne Cravens is a nonprofit management consultant living in Forest Grove.